Today, the gap between the men’s and women’s tours is bridged by occasional events and YouTube golf.
But there was once a figure who stepped onto the tee boxes of the men’s circuit. In the winter of 1945, a golfer achieved what many still consider impossible. Across three different tournaments in the span of a single month, she made the mid-tournament cut, which saw dozens of professional men sent home.
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By doing so, she established a record that has now stood for over eighty years. To this day, despite decades of technological advances, no other woman has managed to replicate this success.
Many have tried, some falling short by a single stroke, but still only one woman has ever made the weekend on the PGA Tour.
(Original Caption) Mildred “Babe” Didrikson, golf star from Texas, driving off, as the gallery hems her in, in the four-ball charity golf match at Fresh Meadow Country Club, Flushing, Long Island, New York, in which she was paired with Babe Ruth against John Montague, Hollywood’s mystery golfer, …
How Mildren “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias made the cut on the PGA Tour
Her name was Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias. Already an international superstar for her two gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Olympics, Zaharias turned her sights to golf.
In January 1945, she entered the Los Angeles Open at Riviera Country Club. After qualifying for the event through a 36-hole preliminary, she fired rounds of 76 and 81 to make the two-day cut.
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While she ultimately missed the 54-hole cut after a third-round 79, her momentum was only beginning. She followed this by making the cut at both the Phoenix Open and the Tucson Open, finishing 33rd and 42nd, respectively.
What is even more impressive is that Zaharias was fighting a two-front war. One against the difficult layouts of the PGA Tour and another against a culture that viewed women’s sports as a sideshow.
By finishing in the money in Tucson and Phoenix, she demanded respect from the male establishment and provided the blueprint for the founding of the LPGA in 1950.
Even later in life, while battling the cancer that would sadly eventually take her at age 45, she won the 1954 U.S. Women’s Open by a staggering 12 strokes just months after major surgery.
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She was truly one of the most remarkable athletes to ever play in any sport.
Other women who tried to make PGA Tour cut
While Babe Zaharias remains the only woman to officially make the cut, several players have come remarkably close.
In 2003, Annika Sorenstam, then the most dominant force in women’s golf, sparked a media frenzy by playing the Bank of America Colonial. Facing intense scrutiny and criticism from peers like Vijay Singh, who said, “She doesn’t belong out here”, she carded a respectable 5-over par.
Sorenstam missed the cut by just four strokes, but proved she could hold her own from the back tees. Later that year, Suzy Whaley became the first since Babe to qualify for an event (the Greater Hartford Open) by winning a regional PGA section championship.
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Michelle Wie West was perhaps the most persistent, making eight PGA Tour starts. At just 14 years old, she missed the cut at the 2004 Sony Open by a single stroke after shooting 72-68.
More recently, Brittany Lincicome (2018) and Lexi Thompson (2023) have continued the pursuit. Thompson, at the Shriners Children’s Open, fired a brilliant 69 in her second round, briefly sitting inside the projected cut line before a late bogey ended her bid.
Each of these women demonstrated that the physical gap is narrowing, and making the cut has gone from a historical anomaly into a tangible, modern goal.
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